Executive Director, Video Data Bank

Abina Manning has promoted artists’ film, video and media art in both Europe and the U.S for more than 25 years. Since 1999 she has been with the Video Data Bank, a leading distributor and resource for video and media art located at the Art Institute of Chicago, where she serves as Executive Director. Before relocating, she was Director of Exhibition at London’s LUX Centre, and Director of the inaugural Pandæmonium Festival of Moving Images, a major European showcase of artists’ film, video and installation staged at London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts.

Abina has curated many screening programs and exhibitions including How to Fix the World, which premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival and toured throughout Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the U.S.  Abina has collaborated on exhibition projects with the Tate Modern, Whitechapel and Serpentine Galleries (London), MoMA and the Moving Image Art Fair (New York), NEXT Art Fair (Chicago), and the Milwaukee Art Museum. She has served as a jurist for the European Media Arts Festival (Osnabruck, Germany), CinemaTexas Film and Video Festival (Austin, TX), and the Third Coast International Audio Festival (Chicago), and as a funding panelist for the Rydell Visual Arts Fellowship, Fleishhacker Foundation, Bush Artist Program and Creative Capital, among others.  She has participated in numerous conferences and symposia, most recently at the University of Kentucky Film Program (Louisville, KN), LOOP Video Art Fair (Barcelona), ARCO Art Fair (Madrid), International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the Video Art Network Forum (Seoul, South Korea).